The King's Daughter (55 page)

“How dare you!” Sydenham cried.

“What is the meaning of this?” the Mayor demanded.

Carlos’s sword scraped from its scabbard. “In Wyatt’s camp I saw Richard Thornleigh, a known traitor.” He pointed his sword at Isabel. “And she is his daughter.”

Isabel was too stunned to speak. John Grenville pushed forward. “You saw Richard Thornleigh? With Wyatt?”

“More than saw. I talked to Thornleigh.” Carlos looked hard at Isabel and spoke loudly and clearly. “He told me he will help Wyatt attack London. He said he will march in the front line. He is a traitor.” His sword tip jerked between Isabel and Sydenham. “This woman is his daughter and this
bastardo
keeps her! He is one of them!”

Isabel’s legs felt as weak as reeds. Sydenham stared, dumbfounded. The commanders began shouting questions, demanding answers—of Carlos, of Sydenham, of one another. It was all confusion.

Carlos moved fast. Beckoning the two lieutenants who’d come with him he jerked his chin toward Sydenham. “Take him!” The young soldiers looked conflicted about arresting so illustrious a gentleman, but their acceptance of Carlos’s authority was absolute. They advanced on Sydenham.

“The woman too,” Carlos said. “She must be questioned.” He strode toward her. Every muscle in Isabel’s body yearned for escape, but to try to flee would be proof of guilt. Trembling, she stood firm.

“Abergavenny!” Sydenham cried in outrage as Carlos and the two lieutenants reached him and Isabel. “This is absurd! This man is an escaped convict!”

Carlos thrust his face an inch from Sydenham’s. “No longer,” he said, his teeth bared in vindication. “I am pardoned.”

Sydenham staggered back a step and the two lieutenants took hold of him. The commanders watched in astonishment. “Abergavenny!” Sydenham protested again. Carlos ignored him. He was looking at Isabel, sheathing his sword, preparing to take her. He grabbed her arm and beckoned his men. “Come!” They pulled Sydenham, and Carlos pulled Isabel. The arrest had happened so fast that the commanders stood gaping. Carlos’s lieutenants were struggling to pull Sydenham past the knot of men, but Carlos was out into the passage with Isabel before anyone could stop him.

He slammed the hall door behind them and dragged her to the front door. As he opened it she squirmed out of his grasp and twisted back toward the hall. He caught her by the elbow, wrenched her around to face him, and pushed her up against the wall. “Listen to me!” he said in a harsh whisper. She sensed that he expected her to try to push away again, so instead she slumped and dropped to the floor. She scrambled past him on hands and knees, about to get up and run back to the hall.

But he was quicker. He caught her by her dress between her shoulder blades and dragged her backward along the floor. He pushed her to sit up against the wall. With the breath forced out of her she flopped back, limp as a doll. Dropping to his knees, Carlos straddled her legs so she could not get up. He forced her shoulders against the wall, his face inches from hers. They stared at each other, both breathing hard.

They heard Sydenham in the hall rage at the lieutenants, “Let me go, you idiots!”

“Stop!”
Abergavenny bellowed.
“Let Sir Edward go!”

Carlos’s eyes flicked anxiously to the hall, then back to Isabel. “You must come,” he said. “Sydenham—”

She spat in his face.

His eyes filled with such a strange intensity that for a moment she didn’t know if he would strike her or kiss her. He did neither. With her spittle still on his cheek, he began to haul her to her feet. She resisted. “You’ve killed him, haven’t you!” she cried.

“No. Get up.”

“Then it’s all lies! You didn’t see him. If you had, you would have killed him.”

“I did see him! Listen to me! You must not stay with Sydenham.”

The passage door flew open. “Valverde!” Abergavenny shouted in horror. “Release the lady! She cannot be held for the crimes of her father. Let her go!”

Men crowded into the passage. Abergavenny and Howard pulled Carlos up off Isabel. “The man’s insane!” Sydenham cried, rushing to Isabel and helping her to her feet. Struggling for balance, she threw her arms around Sydenham’s neck. He clasped her waist.

Carlos wildly lunged for Sydenham. It took three men to restrain him.

Sydenham whisked Isabel to safety out of Carlos’s reach. As he led her back to the hall she glanced over her shoulder at Carlos. He was staring after her, his face a mask of fury.

That evening Edward Sydenham and John Grenville stood at the edge of Thames Street waiting for a troop of soldiers to march by. Edward was still recovering from Valverde’s ferocious attack. He wished he could send the Spaniard to the bottom of the Thames, but the man had become Lord Abergavenny’s favorite, so Edward could not touch him. Edward and John were on their way to London Bridge to inspect the defenses. Edward would rather not have come, but John had insisted, and he was now the head of the house of Grenville. Watching the soldiers go by, impatient to move on, John said, “The Thornleigh girl, how did she get that wound?”

“Hardly a wound, John. A horse bit her.”

The troop passed, their torches flaring in the night wind. John strode into the street. Edward followed.

“A horse?” John asked suspiciously. “Are you sure? Were you there when it happened?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

John grabbed Edward’s elbow to halt him. “I was on the bridge last night with my archers. My captain, Giles Stur-ridge, fired on a boat rowing fast toward the Old Swan Stairs. It was dark, but Sturridge thinks he might have hit the rower in the arm.”

“Well?”

“It was a woman.”

Edward frowned. “What are you saying?”

“The Thornleigh girl may be a spy for Wyatt.”

Edward sighed. “John, I know you and Frances find the girl an irritant. And the Lord knows we’re all under a great deal of strain. But do you not think it a trifle far-fetched to cast her as a traitor?”

“Her father is. And a murderer.”

“Indeed. But she has nothing on her mind except finding him. She is obsessed with that. Believe me, she is barely able to see the crisis around her let alone involve herself in rebel heroics.”

John started forward again, obviously unconvinced. Edward followed. The nine o’clock curfew tolled. They were approaching the foot of the bridge when John said, “Now that we know where Thornleigh is, the girl need hardly stay with you any longer. You have no more use for her. Tell her to leave.” He glanced at Edward with a disapproving frown, and added, “And let Frances know that the girl is going.”

Edward smarted at the reproof. Clearly, Frances had been whining to her brother. “Of course,” he murmured.

“I will have the Thornleigh girl watched,” John went on. “She may incriminate herself before tomorrow is out.”

“Why tomorrow?”

“Wyatt cannot possibly come over the bridge, and to cross otherwise he would need a fleet to ferry his army, also impossible. So Pembroke feels sure he will march upriver to Kingston and cross there. That will bring him back to London at Newgate or Ludgate. And he will likely start out tomorrow.”

Edward felt a tremor of fear. There would be real fighting. He had not thought it would come so soon. He was about to speak when a gunshot blasted from the bridge.

“Come!” John said, hurrying forward. Edward reluctantly followed.

They found the bridge crowded with soldiers, two hundred or more jostling in the narrow street with longbows, arquebuses, and torches. John pushed his way through with Edward in tow. A sergeant with a torch met them halfway to the drawbridge gap. “Arquebus shot, sir,” he reported to John. “Ours.”

“Why? Has Wyatt attempted some kind of attack?” John asked as he pushed on toward the gap.

“No, sir,” the sergeant said, falling into step beside him and Edward. “Seems there’s a wild man on Wyatt’s side.”

They reached Lord Howard who stood behind a row of five arquebusiers fanned out along the gap with their guns poised on forked rests. The long wicks, soaked with saltpeter and looped over the gunbarrels, smoldered as the gunners waited for an order to fire. Edward squeezed between two cannon, avoiding their cold touch.

Lord Howard turned. “Ah, Grenville. Sydenham. What do you make of it?” He pointed across the gap. “Fellow over there’s capering about like a mad monkey.”

Edward’s eyes stung in the sulfurous smoke from the discharged arquebuses as he peered across the chasm of the gap. He saw no sign of life in the deserted houses on the bridge. But a lone figure stood on a flat roof at the gap, a mere silhouette in the darkness.

Lord Howard said with a snort, “What an imbecile. Doesn’t even look armed.”

Grenville nodded with a smile. “What do you think, Sydenham?
Non compos mentis?”

The man’s silhouette suddenly moved to the edge of the roof. “Sydenham!” he yelled as if challenging the whole city. “I’m coming for you!
I know!”

The Queen’s men looked at Edward with curiosity. Fear, like a cannon ball, slammed Edward’s stomach.
Could this man be Thornleigh?

The figure on the roof raised an arm, fist to the sky, and shouted wildly, “I’m coming, Sydenham!
I’m going to kill you!”

Near midnight Edward knelt before the altar of the Virgin Mary in the private chapel of his house, John on his knees beside him. As they’d left London Bridge, John had solemnly suggested that they take a moment in Edward’s chapel to pray for the Blessed Virgin’s help in the coming battle.

Edward never came into this small, dark space. He loathed the gloomy oak slab walls, the mawkish Madonna, the wax altar candles as pale as a corpse’s skin, but most of all he loathed the airless silence, like a tomb. He stole a glance at John. John’s eyes were closed, his hands clasped in supplication, his lips silently mouthing a prayer.

Edward could think of nothing but Thornleigh’s threat on the bridge.
“I know!”
he had cried. It sent a fresh shudder down Edward’s backbone. Somehow, Thornleigh had traced Grenville’s attack on his wife back to him. Everything had unraveled. Thornleigh was coming for him. Thornleigh was going to kill him.

What was he to do? Oh, Christ, what was he to do?

He tried to think, but he felt the air sucked out of the tiny space, saw the altar flame gutter in the starved air, felt his lungs begin to collapse … the place was a coffin! His heart banged against his ribs. He made fists and dug his nails into his palms to bring himself back to reality, forcing himself to see and hear what was real. The Madonna still looked down with her longsuffering gaze. John’s inane prayer droned on.
Good, now concentrate,
Edward told himself, subduing his pounding heart.
Identify the problem. Devise a solution. Think!

What had John said on the way back? Edward had beenso stunned by Thornleigh’s threat he’d barely listened to John. But now he began to recall John’s words. Something about Ludgate and Newgate, and posting the Grenville archers. Yes, that was it. The rebels were going to attack at one of these western gates. And if they did, Edward realized, Thornleigh would be among them. In the front line—that’s what the Spaniard had said. At the thought of fighting, Edward’s bowels churned—he could almost see Thornleigh raging toward him with a bloody sword—but he forced himself to imagine the scene.

There must be an answer here. There must be some way out.

Isabel sat in the velvet cushioned window seat of her bedchamber and looked out at the skeletal arms of the apricot trees in Sydenham’s orchard—black, bony fingers grasping toward the night sky. The room’s scented candles cast a gentle glow, and the brazier radiated soft waves of heat, but Isabel felt cold. Her mind still reeled from Carlos’s attack, and his astounding declarations. The news that her father had joined Wyatt’s army had stunned her.

She looked down at her mother’s book on her lap. Was there no end to the surprises of her parents’ characters? She fanned the pages, remembering how Master Legge had said this book had changed her mother’s life. Changed it how? Isabel wondered. She felt resentment rise in her again over the secrets her parents had kept from her. Secret voyages, burnings, rescues, mysterious books.

The book’s leaves fell open at the title page. There, the brilliant blue speedwell flower gleamed back at her like a mild rebuke. She had never been as proficient in Latin as her mother was, but she’d understood, from snatched readings of the short text, that its thesis was that immortality of the soul might be merely a man-made fantasy. This was truly heresy. But it didn’t horrify Isabel. It seemed to her that earth was bountiful enough in natural splendor and meaning without the dream of a life after death. It made her feel a new kinship with her mother, a kinship beyond blood. One of spirit. The kinship of equals.

Why was there no news of her? She must surely have arrived in Antwerp by now, so why had the nurse not sent word? Or Adam? Was it because her mother had not survived her wound? The thought terrified Isabel. She couldn’t imagine life without her mother. A woman who, apparently, had faced dangers as grave as Isabel did now, and had fought them and prevailed. That’s what she would hang on to, Isabel decided. That’s what she would be led by. Her mother’s example.

She ran her fingertip over the lovely blue speedwell, and its fragile, veined petals seemed to quiver as if under her mother’s breath as she used to whisper the family fable about Isabel’s eyes.
So your father gave up one of his own eyes to fill yours with this wondrous blue …
Isabel shook her head with a sad smile. Such sweet nonsense. Yet as a child she had believed it, and adored her father for his sacrifice.

Tears pricked her eyes. How was she to save him now? At first, after Carlos’s attack, she’d been overwhelmed with hope, for Wyatt would surely prevail in the coming fight, and then she and her father would be reunited and all the Queen’s power and all the Grenvilles’ venom would dissolve. But soon doubt had crept in. Carlos had also said her father planned to march in Wyatt’s front line. Even if Wyatt was victorious, his first men attacking the fortified city would likely be cut down. If her father was going to be among them, she could not save him. The thought dismayed her.